President Donald Trump thrust the nation even additional right into a constitutional disaster over the weekend with a sequence of blatantly unlawful actions that left authorized students sounding alarm bells about the way forward for america.
Not solely has Trump declared speech he doesn’t wish to be unlawful, he’s even ignoring court docket orders as a part of his deportation quest.
“Court order defied. First of many as I’ve been warning and start of true constitutional crisis,” Mark Zaid, a lawyer whom Trump focused by eradicating his safety clearance, wrote in a submit on X.
Zaid additionally predicted that the actions Trump took this weekend “[u]ltimately will lead to Trump impeachment proceedings” if Democrats win management of Congress.
President Donald Trump waves from the steps of Air Pressure One upon his arrival at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, on. March 17, 2025
On the identical day, Trump signed an govt order concentrating on the legislation agency Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, revoking safety clearances of legal professionals who work on the agency, and saying he’ll cancel the contracts of any firms or entities which are represented by the legislation agency’s attorneys.
He focused this legislation agency as a result of it employed a prosecutor who labored on former particular counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the 2016 Trump marketing campaign’s alleged ties to Russia. Trump additionally focused the agency as a result of it employed a lawyer who labored on the Manhattan district legal professional’s workplace, which efficiently prosecuted Trump for falsifying enterprise information.
Trump had already focused two different massive legislation companies—Perkins Coie and Covington & Burling—for comparable causes, all an try to attempt to scare legal professionals out of representing individuals or causes Trump doesn’t like.
When Trump issued the brand new govt order in opposition to Paul, Weiss, a federal choose had already blocked a part of Trump’s order in opposition to Perkins Coie, whose legal professionals Trump tried to ban from federal buildings. U.S. District Choose Beryl A. Howell accused the Trump administration of illegally retaliating in opposition to the agency, which she stated “sends little chills down my spine,” The Washington Put up reported.
Not content material with that illegality, Trump additionally successfully axed seven federal companies created and funded by Congress, together with the government-funded media outlet Voice of America. It was the most recent time Trump ignored Congress’ directives by making the unilateral determination to cancel congressionally appropriated spending—a lot of which have already been overturned by federal judges.
On Saturday, Trump invoked an 18th century legislation that america as soon as used to shamefully lock up Japanese-People in internment camps throughout World Struggle II, utilizing it to justify deporting immigrants with out due course of.
Trump declared that the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is a overseas terrorist group and an invading power, and used the Alien Enemies Act of 1798—which permits for noncitizens to be deported with out due course of if the president declares that the U.S. is at warfare—to say that anybody he deems a member of Tren de Aragua shall be topic to “immediate apprehension, detention, and removal, and further that they shall not be permitted residence in the United States.”
“From improperly apprehending American citizens, to violating the ability of communities to peacefully worship, to now improperly trying to invoke a law that is responsible for some of our nation’s most shameful actions, this administration’s immigration agenda is as lawless as it is harmful,” she continued.
On this photograph offered by El Salvador’s presidential press workplace, jail guards switch deportees from the U.S., alleged to be Venezuelan gang members, to the Terrorism Confinement Middle in Tecoluca, El Salvador on March 16, 2025.
Trump put greater than 230 Venezuelans he accused of being Tren de Aragua members on a aircraft and despatched them to a violent jail in El Salvador, the place 1000’s of males are housed in cramped cells and are by no means allowed outdoor. It’s unclear if any of the lads on the aircraft have been really members of the gang, with one lawyer for one of many deported immigrants saying that his consumer had been wrongfully labeled a gang member due to misinterpreted tattoos, The New York Occasions reported.
Trump despatched the immigrants to El Salvador regardless of a choose ordering him to show the planes round and return the immigrants to america, a blatant violation of the separation of powers.
White Home press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that the administration didn’t comply with the order as a result of “[a] single judge in a single city cannot direct the movements of an aircraft carrier full of foreign alien terrorists who were physically expelled from U.S. soil.”
Much more disturbing is that the Trump administration then posted a propaganda video to his Fact Social profile. The video depicts the deportations, with masked jail officers mistreating the Venezuelans whom Trump despatched to El Salvador, probably by no means to be seen once more.
And on Sunday, Trump took his lawlessness to new heights when he ridiculously declared in a batshit-crazy Fact Social submit that pardons former President Joe Biden issued to members of Congress on the now-defunct committee that probed the Capitol riot are “VOID, VACANT, AND OF NO FURTHER FORCE OR EFFECT.”
Trump stated Biden’s pardons of the members of Congress are void as a result of he baselessly claimed that Biden didn’t know that the pardons have been issued. He seems to have primarily based this new conspiracy principle off an article within the right-wing New York Put up, which stated {that a} “key aide” to Biden decided which orders he would signal and which might be signed by autopen.
Nevertheless, from the Put up’s personal report:
One Biden White Home supply instructed The Put up they think {that a} key aide to the then-president could have made unilateral determinations on what to auto-sign. The Put up will not be publishing that staffer’s identify because of the lack of concrete proof and refutations by different colleagues.
In the meantime, as america delved deeper into authoritarianism, Trump was extra involved together with his favourite pastime: golf.
In a transfer taken straight from North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s playbook, Trump congratulated himself for successful a golf championship at certainly one of his shitty golf properties in Florida, writing in a Fact Social submit: “Such a great honor! The Awards dinner is tonight, at the Club. I want to thank the wonderful Golf Staff, and all of the many fantastic golfers, that participated in the even. Such fun!”
We’re in severely darkish instances.
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